Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards offered a telling statement recently about when she thinks life begins, an opinion that should alarm any individual concerned about protecting pre-born children.
In an interview on Fusion TV, a Disney-owned cable and satellite network, Richards said she believes the lives of her own children began only at the moment she chose to give birth to them.
“For you, when does life start?” interviewer Jorge Ramos asked Richards on the Fusion program America. “When does a human being become a human being?”
Stumbling awkwardly through her response, an uncomfortable Richards answered that “this is a question that I think will be debated through the centuries and people come down on very different points of view.”
Ramos attempted to corner the cagey Richards: “But for you what’s that point?” — a question which the Planned Parenthood functionary dodged by lamely responding: “I mean, it’s not something that I feel like is really part of this conversation,” before haltingly saying that “I think every woman has to make her own decision.”
Richards insisted that “what we do at Planned Parenthood is make sure women have all their options for health care. They have an option to have a healthy pregnancy. They have an option to put up a child for adoption if they decide to carry a pregnancy to term, or they have a right to make a decision to terminate a pregnancy”— terminate being Planned Parenthood’s preferred way of referring to the murderous abortion procedure.
Bringing Richards back to his original question, Ramos wondered why it would be “so controversial for you to say when you think life starts.” Richards questioned how such a common-sense question was “relevant to the conversation,” but dove in nonetheless by offering that “I’m a mother of three children. For me life began when I delivered them.
Realizing that such a heartless response would shock the average viewer, Richards quickly stammered the assurance that her children “have been probably the most important thing in my life ever since.”
However, feeling the need to add her company’s marketing theme to the conversation, Richards punctuated her response with the observation that delivering her babies live rather than killing them before birth “was my own personal decision.”
In its latest annual report, Planned Parenthood recalled that its nationwide affiliates dispatched 327,166 (assumedly) pre-born babies via abortion during the 2012-2013 fiscal year. As for Richards insistence that her group promotes adoption to expectant mothers as an alternative to abortion, Planned Parenthood’s report cited only 2,197 adoption referrals during the same reporting period — a ratio of 149 abortions for every adoption referral.
Responding to Richards’ highly publicized interview, Marjorie Dannenfelser of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List noted that the remarks “were insensitive and unfeeling to any woman who has ever been pregnant, especially those women who have suffered the pain of miscarriage.”
Dannenfelser added that the politics of “reproductive choice” have marginalized the real-life experiences of millions of pregnant women. “Richards’ statement misses what most Americans understand about pregnancy, especially women…. There are two human beings involved,” she said.
Alluding to the abortion giant’s plan to spend over $18 million this year to help elect pro-abortion Democrats in legislative and gubernatorial races, Dannenfelser said that “if there are disappointments at the ballot box for Planned Parenthood in 2014 it will be an outgrowth of this disconnect with the women they claim to represent.”
